Subjective assessment of listening environments in university classrooms: perceptions of students

A questionnaire is developed to evaluate perception of the listening environment by university students. The objectives were to develop a questionnaire-based measurement tool, derive a measure of perceived classroom-listening quality, use the questionnaire to investigate factors that enhance, impair, or do not affect perceived listening quality, and consider the implications for classroom design. The questionnaire was administered to over 5700 students in 30 classrooms at one university. Physical and acoustical measurements were also performed in each classroom. The questionnaire included items that recorded aspects of student perception, as well as individual, course-, and instructor-specific factors. Responses to 19 perception items generated a perception of listening ease (PLE) score for each student and a classroom-average score. Decreased PLE was associated with women, English-second-larguage students, those with hearing impairment, students not interested in the course material, and those who found the material difficult. Increased PLE was associated with higher speech transmission index, acceptable lighting, temperature and seating, better instructor voice, increased visual-aid use, and easier course material. Results indicate that PLE is a useful measure of student perception of the classroom-listening environment, and that optimal classroom acoustical design must take into consideration "in-use" conditions, as well as classroom physical characteristics.     

Projective deformations of hyperbolic Coxeter 3-orbifolds

By using Klein??s model for hyperbolic geometry, hyperbolic structures on orbifolds or manifolds provide examples of real projective structures. By Andreev??s theorem, many 3-dimensional reflection orbifolds admit a finite volume hyperbolic structure, and such a hyperbolic structure is unique. However, the induced real projective structure on some such 3-orbifolds deforms into a family of real projective structures that are not induced from hyperbolic structures. In this paper, we find new classes of compact and complete hyperbolic reflection 3-orbifolds with such deformations. We also explain numerical and exact results on projective deformations of some compact hyperbolic cubes and dodecahedra.     

A survey of alpha-clustering

The concept of alpha-clustering has found many applications to nuclear reactions and nuclear structure. Calculations of the properties of nuclear matter indicate that condensation into alpha-particles occurs when the density is somewhat less than the central nuclear density, suggesting that alpha clustering is favoured in the nuclear surface. This provides an explanation of alpha-decay which is now quantitatively successful. The concept of the alpha-particle mean field is now widely used to unify the alpha-particle bound and unbound states found by alpha-transfer reactions, and the scattering of alpha-particles by nuclei. The analysis of the structure of⁴⁴Ti using the alpha-⁴⁰Ca potential has been particularly successful. There are now several phenomenological alpha-alpha interactions that fit the low energy phase shifts, and these are used to calculate the structure of light nuclei, particularly those composed of 2N protons and 2N neutrons. Many excited states of such nuclei can be studied in this way, and a particularly interesting class of states is those composed of a linear chain of alpha-particles, some of which have been identified experimentally.     

Organolithium-induced synthesis of acyclic unsaturated amino alcohols from epoxides of dihydropyrroles and tetrahydropyridines

The alkylative double ring-opening of Bus-protected 2,5-dihydropyrrole epoxides 13 and 29 with organolithiums to give 3-substituted 1-aminobut-3-en-2-ols 13-19 and 30-32 are described. Bus-protected tetrahydropyridine epoxide 38 reacts with organolithiums to give 4-substituted 1-aminobut-4-en-3-ols 39 and tetrahydropyridinol 40.     

Structural characterization of metallopeptides designed as scaffolds for the stabilization of nickel(II)-Fe(4)S(4) bridged assemblies by X-ray absorption spectroscopy

In earlier work, de novo designed peptides with a helix-loop-helix motif and 63 residues have been synthesized as potential scaffolds for stabilization of the [Ni(II)-X-Fe(4)S(4)] bridged assembly that is the spectroscopically deduced structure of the A-Cluster in clostridial carbon monoxide dehydrogenase. The 63mers contain a consensus tricysteinyl ferredoxin domain in the loop for binding an Fe(4)S(4) cluster and Cys and His residues proximate to the loop for binding Ni(II), with one Cys residue designed as the bridge X. The metallopeptides HC(4)H(2)-[Fe(4)S(4)]-Ni and HC(5)H-[Fe(4)S(4)]-M, containing three His and one Cys residue for Ni(II) coordination and two His and two Cys residues for binding M = Ni(II) and Co(II), have been examined by Fe-, Ni-, and Co-K edge spectroscopy and EXAFS. All peptides bind an [Fe(4)S(4)](2+) cubane-type cluster. Interpretation of the Ni and Co data is complicated by the presence of a minority population of six-coordinate species with low Z ligands, designated for simplicity as [M(OH(2))(6)](2+). Best fits of the data were obtained with ca. 20% [M(OH(2))(6)](2+) and ca. 80% M(II) with mixed N/S coordination. The collective XAS results for HC(4)H(2)-[Fe(4)S(4)]-Ni and HC(5)H-[Fe(4)S(4)]-M demonstrate the presence of an Fe(4)S(4) cluster and support the existence of the distorted square-planar coordination units [Ni(II)(S.Cys)(N.His)(3)] and [Ni(II)(S.Cys)(2)(N.His)(2)] in the HC(4)H(2) and HC(5)H metallopeptides, respectively. In the HC(5)H metallopeptide, tetrahedral [Co(II)(S.Cys)(2)(N.His)(2)] is present. We conclude that the designed scaffolded binding sites, including Ni-(mu(2)-S.Cys)-Fe bridges, have been achieved. This is the first XAS study of a de novo designed metallopeptide intended to stabilize a bridged biological assembly, and one of a few XAS analyses of metal derivatives of designed peptides. The scaffolding concept should be extendable to other bridged metal assemblies.